In the days when her dear husband Jimmy used to drive 54,000 miles a year in the name of football, Bryony Hill found herself settled into a late-night routine at their village home in Sussex.

'I would stand at the window after midnight and I would see the lights of his car come off the A23 and then hit the oak trees at the end of the lane and I knew it would be him,' Bryony recalled this week. 'I did it when we lived in London, too. My cocker spaniel used to wait for him with me.

'Jimmy used to take the Kit-Kats from the Kensington Hilton where he stayed with the BBC and give them to her. I just worried about him driving, just wanted him home.

Jimmy Hill, the football legend who used to present Match of the Day, is buckling under Alzheimer's disease

Hill's wife, Bryony, has charted the life of one of football's most influential, iconic figures in a new book

Bryony talks to Sportsmail's Ian Ladyman about her love story that sadly does not have a happy ending

'I would open the door for him and make sure he got a smiley face rather than just finding me snoring away upstairs. I couldn't settle until he was back home anyway.'

The rather unlikely love story of Jimmy and Bryony Hill is one that began in 1976 after she answered an ad in The Times that read simply: 'BBC TV Sports Personality with a dog seeks super-efficient PA.'

Hill was the twice-married 49-year-old emerging face of BBC football coverage, a one-man broadcasting tour de force who, 15 years earlier, had managed to break the sport's stranglehold on its players by abolishing its maximum wage.

Bryony, on the other hand, was just 25 years old. 'I just needed some money,' she added this week.

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Employment and then romance followed but their love story is one without a happy ending. Jimmy, now 87, suffers from Alzheimer's disease and can no longer recognise nor communicate with his partner of more than 35 years.

So these days, Bryony's routine is different, involving three visits a week to the nearby care home where her husband will see out his days. The decline of her 'Gentleman Jim' has broken her heart.

'My role is just to be there, to comfort him and hopefully make him smile,' Bryony told me. 'Because those happy endorphins do stay, those of being loved.

'He won't know I've been or who I am but smiling and the energy that produces is comforting for him. He does smile. And he will pat my back and say, "Oh good, oh good".

Hill poses for a photo with British entertainer Bruce Forsyth at an event the Savoy hotel in London in 1981

Hill is pictured alongside Eric Morecambe in one of many photos from Bryony's wonderful new book

'But it's a horrible disease. You don't know what is going on in their mind, they just can't communicate properly. It is heartbreaking. And you can't put the handbrake on because there is no handbrake. Nothing. You cannot win.'

As we sit in the kitchen of the beautiful home the couple shared for 30 years, Bryony wipes away tears. In the corner, the 10-year-old black Labrador Suzie who Jimmy loved so much — the couple's third — sleeps on a huge basket. 'I rely on her now,' smiles Bryony. 'She needs me, too, and I like that.'

We are talking on account of Bryony's wonderful new book charting life with her husband. At times, it is a chaotic, whirlwind tale, in keeping with the helter-skelter nature of life with one of modern football's most influential, iconic figures.

During his playing days with Fulham, Hill leap-frogs team-mate Tosh Chamberlain during a training session

Bryony's book is a joyous story of Jimmy's achievements as a player, manager, chairman and more

It is, we should point out, a joyous tale on the whole, a story of Jimmy's achievements as a player, manager, chairman, administrator, broadcaster and, of course, husband. It is not mawkish, but rather celebratory. 'It wasn't really an intention to do it,' Bryony said.

'I was missing him dreadfully, turning ideas over in the night. The more I reminisced and thought about things, I just started finding so many comforting memories. I started writing. It was cathartic. It made me reflect and remember how he was and how different our life is now. It became a labour of love, emotional but also joyful.

'To think such a vibrant, dynamic, intelligent man is now buckling under this ghastly illness is hard to take. But it was comforting to go through his scrapbook and things and find his great quotes. I wanted his voice in the book, not just mine. It was lovely to hear him.'

Nestled among Bryony Hill's collection of mementoes from her husband's remarkable career is a rare bird indeed, a letter of apology from Sir Alex Ferguson.

The former Manchester United manager had called Hill, then the face of BBC football, a 'prat' on camera following a game against Norwich in 1994.

'There is nothing wrong with losing one's temper so long as it is for the right reasons,' wrote Ferguson. 'But on this occasion there was no valid reason.'

Sir Alex Ferguson wrote a rare apology to Hill, while the likes of Jim Rosenthal took inspiration from him

Hill would always write back, providing advice as one of modern football's most influential, iconic figures

Jimmy wrote back, of course. He always wrote or phoned back.

'Young people would write and ring,' recalled Bryony. 'Jim Rosenthal wrote to him when he was starting out and my Jim wrote a personal letter back. The same with Richard Keys.

'He would take time to guide people if they wanted it. Young students doing papers on football hooliganism or something would be invited here, or he would talk to them on the phone for hours.

'He just wanted to help people who were interested in football. Football was his life. He could just see his way through things. He was the same as a coach. He had a way of communicating with people. That was one of his great skills.'

Included in the 200 pages of Bryony's book is a list Jimmy made of his achievements. 'He just found it comforting looking back,' she said, smiling gently.

The former forward ran with the Pamplona bulls with the Daily Mail's legendary correspondent Ian Wooldridge

Hill never earned more than £20 a week as a player but his victory on wages paved the way for today's riches

By the time he retired, the list was long. Apart from his playing career with Brentford and Fulham and his spells managing Coventry — who he took into the old Division One — and Saudi Arabia, Jimmy was a proven football administrator who, for example, was behind the drive to turn two points for a win into three points and the development of England's first all-seat stadium at Highfield Road.

His life, however, was even richer than that. As a teenager he was briefly a chimney sweep, while during his National Service he would iron squaddies' uniforms, for a fee, and even taught a typing class. Away from football, he rode competently, once saddling up for a PR stunt around the pitch at Coventry and presenting BBC Sportsnight with a broken shoulder. He was a keen golfer, a gifted cornet player and ran with the Pamplona bulls with the Daily Mail's legendary correspondent Ian Wooldridge.

He never earned more than £20 a week as a player but his victory on wages in 1961 paved the way for today's riches as, in a way, did his advancement of the way football was presented on TV during a broadcasting career bookended by spells at ITV and Sky but spent predominantly at his beloved BBC.

Without Jimmy, there would have been no platform for Des Lynam — a firm friend — or Gary Lineker, a confirmed admirer. Bryony would often accompany Jimmy on his long drives around the country, filling his pipe in the passenger seat, keeping his diary and answering the telephone.

His work provided a platform for Des Lynam - a firm friend - and Gary Lineker, a confirmed admirer of his

Hill serves up a plate of Christmas dinner at a family gathering in either the late 1980s or the early 1990s

'For a while I was essentially his agent,' she said. 'I certainly spent a lot of time at sporting events!

'I never liked sport but it was time we could spend together and often the car journeys were long and lonely for him and it was time to talk and plan. It was just nice to be together. I didn't like going round golf courses pulling the trolley in the rain and looking for the ball, though. That was a labour of love.'

Bryony's life was one constructed around her husband. It still is. Devotion in the truest sense of the word. Three times she asked him to marry her before, at home after an argument in the car following a game at Reading, Jimmy proposed. Did she, though, watch her husband often on television?

'Not really!' she exclaimed with a guilty fit of laughter. 'I would stay awake if I could until Match of the Day came on and would turn it on just in time to hear the music.

'I would see him and he would say, "Welcome to Match of the Day", and that would be it, off it went! I wanted to see him safe and smiley and looking good and then I would pretend to him that I had watched it all but of course I hadn't.'

To the modern generation, Jimmy will be remembered largely as a face on TV. His reach, though, was much greater.

Jimmy will be remembered largely as a face on TV and especially Match of the Day by the modern generation

Jimmy and Bryony pose together with their dog - his wife's life was one constructed around her husband

He played a part in forming the Stable Lads' Association — a union for the backbone of the racing industry — set up children's charity SPARKS and once held a meeting of the short-lived 'Improve the Game Committee' with Ron Greenwood, Bertie Mee and FA chief Graham Kelly around the same kitchen table at which Bryony served tea and home-made ginger biscuits this week.

With five children from his previous relationships, Jimmy's insatiable appetite for life, work and change was underpinned by the lady at home, even to the extent of his eclectic taste in clothes.

'He once wore his slippers during a Sunday episode of Match of the Day,' recalled Bryony. 'Nobody could tell but I knew. And once I had to colour in a yellow Slazenger badge with black ink because they weren't allowed to wear logos. It was one of his golfing jumpers.

'Before an England qualifier I went to Brighton to buy a white tie. He tied it into a bow tie at home so that I could put the red St George's cross on the middle and he wore it often when England played.

'I also got a rose from the garden that he wore and a Scottish tie we sent out to Paris for him to wear for the Scots in the 1998 World Cup. I really liked the white one and I still have it somewhere. It's covered in make-up... his, not mine.'

The couple are pictured outside the White House in Washington DC on a holiday when they were younger

Jimmy and Bryony failed to spot the early signs of the illness seven years ago. 'We were so busy still, had a very full diary and were still rushing around the place,' she said. 'If there were bits of forgetfulness, well he was then 80, you think natural ageing, whatever.

'We carried on with our lives and then it did escalate. Gradually it became spatial awareness and you realised something wasn't right.

'But you can carry on having a professional job even with Alzheimer's when it starts. The brain is still functioning but different bits of it, well... I liken it to an office block as a light goes out on one floor and no one replaces it. Another one goes on the ground floor and it is two weeks before someone notices.

'I had no idea what I was headed for, though. Everything was bewildering because you have a lovely, healthy-looking man in front of you but the mind is falling apart and you don't know how to handle it.

'I was at the point of crumbling as when he was confused or upset, to give the comfort was very, very tough. You just want them to feel wanted and loved and safe. They must feel so desperately vulnerable and they can't express it.'

Bryony suffered as, post-diagnosis, villagers bumped into Jimmy and declared him 'well'. She knew what was happening, though, recording developments in a diary. A final public appearance came in 2011 when a statue was unveiled in his honour in Coventry as fans sang a club song he had written.

Prince Edward speaks with Jimmy and Bryony at a black tie dinner on one of many social occasions together

A final public appearance for Hill came in 2011 when a statue was unveiled in his honour in Coventry

'He didn't quite know what was going on but he felt the crowd and did enjoy it,' she said. 'To this day, music still makes him happy. He loves the sing-alongs with the other residents. He doesn't know the words but he has a good, strong voice still. It's extraordinary.'

Ultimately, the decision to admit her husband to care three-and-a-half years ago was not taken by Bryony. 'The decision was made by the doctors that he needed full-time nursing care,' she said.

'But the guilt that I had let him down by not caring for him was heart-breaking. Everyone says you mustn't feel guilty but it's human nature. When he needed me most I couldn't provide the care he now needs. You just have to accept it.

'And now I feel guilty because I don't feel guilty any more.'

Jimmy will never return to his lovely home in Hurstpierpoint but memories of him are written right through it. On the walls, on the bookshelves and in the picture frames. Bryony, despite her sense of loss, is wonderful company, giggling wildly as our photographer fusses over her in the conservatory, Jimmy's favourite room.

Jimmy and Bryony first met when she responded to an advert he had posted that read: 'BBC TV Sports Personality with a dog seeks super-efficient PA' to set off what proved to be an unlikely love story in 1976

Memories of Hill are written right through his home in Hurstpierpoint - although he will never return there

Before we leave, she signs a copy of her book for me with a fountain pen she once bought for Jim. 'He would not write with anything else,' she said with a smile.

Somehow it seems right to finish at the point of their very first meeting. 'I knew nothing about him,' she said. 'I had been living in France for five years and had no interest in sport. I was flat-footed and hopeless. When the agency said "Jimmy Hill" I was like, "Who?"

'I was engaged to a rugby player and turned up to the interview in a rugby sweatshirt. Totally wrong.

'I recognised him of course. I knew perfectly when I saw him.

'What struck me was his bright, twinkly eyes. He was almost bird-like in that all his movements were sharp and alert and intelligent.

'He was charming, 6ft tall and slim and just, well, charming. He was charming to women and to men. He devoted his time to you and made you feel special.

'It didn't matter if you were 90 or 19, male or female. He was just interested in people.'

My Gentleman Jim: A Love Story by Bryony Hill is available to purchase from the Book Guild at £15.99 plus p&p